Policy Languages Interest Group Charter

The Policy Languages Interest
Group, part of the Privacy
Activity, is a forum for W3C Members and non-Members to discuss
interoperability questions that arise when different policy languages are used
in integrated use cases, along with related requirements and needs.

Information about joining the Interest Group by subscribing to
the mailing list is available on the group's home
page.

Mission

The Policy Languages Interest Group is a forum for W3C Members and the
public to discuss interoperability issues - along with related requirements and
needs - that arise when using a variety of policy languages where there is a
need to compute results across these multiple languages.

An important function of the Interest Group is information sharing within
and between application communities. Conference announcements and
post-conference reviews to the Interest Group mailing list help advise W3C
Staff and W3C Members, as well as the Policy Language Community at large, where
the W3C might most effectively allocate resources.

Scope

The Policy Languages Interest Group is designed as a forum to support
researchers, developers, solution providers, and users of policy languages such
as XACML
(eXtensible Access Control Markup Language), the IETF's Common Policy framework and
related work, and P3P (W3C's Platform for Privacy Preferences
Project). It provides a forum to enable broader collaboration, through use of
email discussion, scheduled IRC topic chats, Wikis, and Weblog tools.

The group will primarily focus on policy languages that are already
specified and broadly address the privacy, access control, and obligation
management areas; it is not expected to engage in the design of new policy or
rule languages. The Interest Group will work towards identifying obstacles to a
joint deployment of such languages, and suggest requirements and technological
enablers that may help overcome such obstacles.

The Interest Group hosts discussions both of architectural and application
interest; it will, in particular, consider use cases in the compliance,
privacy, access control, identity management and obligation management areas,
with specific attention to diverse user-led and entreprise-led policy
requirements. The group may explore the use of relevant technologies toward
delivering interoperability frameworks for policy languages. Relevant
technologies include Semantic Web technologies, the work of the W3C Rule
Interchange Working Group, and advanced policy negotiation and evaluation
frameworks.

Deliverables

As an Interest Group, the Policy Languages Interest Group does not develop
specifications, and, as a body, it does not have a specific set of
deliverables. The Interest Group may be asked to review Last Call Working
Drafts and Proposed Recommendations. The Interest Group may also make proposals
to other W3C Groups with the help of the W3C Team contact when there is
evidence of sufficient Member interest in a work item.

The Interest Group may also propose holding a public workshop to explore new
and emerging approaches, or propose future W3C work.

Participation

Participation to the Policy Languages Interest Group is open to the public.
Any person or organization interested in the design and application of policy
languages is eligible to participate in this Interest Group; W3C Membership is
not a prerequisite. There are no minimum requirements for participation in this
group. Participants are strongly encouraged to take advantage of frequent
opportunities to review and comment on deliverables from other groups.

Communication

This group primarily conducts its work on the public mailing list
public-pling@w3.org (archive). The
Interest Group exists primarily as an online forum; it does not typically
conduct weekly phone conferences. The Interest Group may also conduct virtual
meetings using email, IRC, wiki and teleconference facilities, although the
large scale, International nature of the group motivates a focus on low cost,
asynchronous mechanisms such as email, its web site, and possibly a weblog. The
Interest Group may on occasion meet or sponsor "Birds-Of-a-Feather" sessions at
conferences, W3C Technical Plenaries or alongside other W3C meetings, at the
discretion of the Chair and W3C staff contact.

Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face
meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the Policy Languages
Interest Group home page.

Patent Disclosures

The Policy Languages Interest Group provides an opportunity to share
perspectives on Policy Languages. W3C reminds Interest Group participants of
their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6
of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Interest Group does not produce
Recommendation-track documents, when Interest Group participants review
Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure
obligations do apply.

Please note that the proceedings of this Interest Group (mailing list
archives, minutes, etc.) are publicly visible.

Resource Statement

0.2 FTE of Team resources will be allocated to the Privacy Activity at this
point, consisting of the Team Contact for this Interest Group, and a Privacy
Activity Lead.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 6.2 of
the Process Document. In the
event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and
the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.
This charter was extended by the Director through 30 June 2007, see the annoucement
to the AC [member-only]